Elon Musk's online network X has provoked major anger after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of women by stripping their clothing.
Multiple cases have been seen where the system has been used to virtually strip female subjects to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being introduced to ban nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to give reactions or more context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded image through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to create images and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting images of people in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.
